Chapter 878: Chapter 842: Perfect Score! Perfect Score!
The so-called exhibition means putting various things on display on shelves or behind windows for the audience to see.
It’s quite similar to what Gu Mian thought a museum would be like.
Gu Mian guessed that the original name of this instance should have been "Fierce Ghost Exhibition," but for some reason, it was changed to such a strange name.
But what does the Evil God want him to do in this instance? Gu Mian was somewhat puzzled. It couldn’t be that he just wanted him to admire the elegant demeanor of these ghosts.
At this moment, Gu Mian suddenly saw several doors around the walls of the hall, five in total, arranged in a peculiar human shape, tightly shut.
Each pair of doors was spaced a distance apart, like five children holding hands, surrounding the entire hall. It was unknown where the doors led to.
Other people also noticed these five strangely shaped doors.
"Doctor," Fatty leaned closer to Gu Mian with a great sense of insecurity, "these doors look strange and quite terrifying."
Just as Gu Mian was watching those five human-shaped doors, a sudden kettle-like screeching sound came from behind—a stranger’s voice.
Turning their heads towards the scream, they saw a person standing at the stairway near the exhibition rack. He seemed to have just come down from the stairs and was now screaming at Gu Mian.
"Why is he screaming at us?" Fatty was puzzled, "Clearly, the ghosts in the hall look scarier."
"He’s an NPC." Xie Bi’an, who had not spoken until now, finally said.
Oh, Fatty nodded and then understood why he was screaming.
"Who... who are you? Why are you here?" The NPC pointed at them with a finger, looking terrified.
Isn’t it normal for players to appear in instances? That should be our question to you, Fatty mused internally.
Soon, the NPC who had just come down the stairs fixed his gaze on Gu Mian’s face. He looked at Gu Mian left and right, his expression starting to blur, even slapping his face halfway through as if trying to wake himself up.
It was clear he wanted to hypnotize himself into believing he was dreaming, so when he woke up, Gu Mian would be gone.
But despite several solid slaps on his face, the dream did not end; instead, his face began to sting painfully.
The NPC finally realized he wasn’t having a nightmare; the person in front of him was the living Gu Mian. His expression could no longer be maintained.
With vacant eyes, he stared at Gu Mian, muttering to himself: "How is this possible? How is this possible? I clearly closed the matching channel for this instance, and even changed the name to something strange... just to prevent anyone from using the Dungeon Entry Ticket to enter the instance name and come here. But why did someone still come? And it’s a terrifying person..."
So that’s how it is—Gu Mian finally understood why the instance name was so extraordinarily odd.
Apparently unable to accept reality, the NPC closed his eyes and fled upstairs, abandoning Gu Mian and the others.
"Doctor, though the Evil God gave you the Dungeon Entry Ticket for this instance, it seems he didn’t leave anyone to receive us." Fatty looked at the back of the fleeing NPC, who evidently didn’t know Gu Mian would come here. "And we don’t know the instance task. The NPC just now seemed to have gone mad. What should we do next, Doctor?"
"He will come back." 007 spoke up from the side.
Fatty looked at her in confusion: "How does Miss 007 know that?"
"If he doesn’t come back to manage the instance, then Gu Mian could stay here as long as he wants," 007 looked toward the stairs. "Anyone smart would know what the optimal solution is."
The optimal solution, of course, is to let everyone complete the instance task quickly and smoothly, and send Gu Mian, the great Buddha, out as soon as possible.
"That’s right," Fatty thought aloud, "if I were the NPC, I would definitely come out immediately to issue the task and let the doctor leave early."
But then he raised another question: "But we don’t even know if the instance task can still be effective. When I entered, I saw that the task introduction had been completely altered."
Even if the task could still be done, Gu Mian didn’t want to finish and leave immediately. He still didn’t understand why the Evil God wanted him to come to this instance, and he needed to figure things out before leaving.
The NPC apparently also realized what 007 had said, and soon there was a "thump, thump, thump" sound from the stairs, indicating someone was coming down.
Then Gu Mian saw the NPC who had left coming down again, holding a green notebook in his hand, his hair messier than before, as if he had stuck his head into some low cabinet to find something.
The green notebook he held was likely the thing he found.
"Haha." The staff member came down and squeezed out a reluctant smile at Gu Mian and the others. "Welcome to the instance ’Fierce Ghost Exhibition,’ I’m the Exhibition’s assessor."
Gu Mian and the others remained silent, just watching him quietly, with no one cheering him on.
He wasn’t embarrassed, just kept talking to himself as he walked towards the exhibit stand next to the stairs: "Haha, I guess everyone isn’t clear about the rules of this instance yet, so let me explain to everyone one by one... Ah!"
Perhaps due to being too nervous, he accidentally tripped on the steps as he was heading to the exhibit stand and fell to the ground with an "Ah" sound.
But he quickly got up, even laughing awkwardly with a "haha" as he climbed back to his feet.
Gu Mian had never seen an NPC who loved to laugh so much. They say those who laugh a lot are blessed with good luck. This NPC must have very good fortune.
"He’s bleeding from the nose," Keke whispered from the side.
Gu Mian saw it too; two streams of bright red blood flowed from the NPC’s nostrils. But he didn’t mind and wiped his nose with his sleeve, staining a part of his white work uniform red immediately.
Finally reaching the stage, he placed the green notebook in his hand on the table slightly to the left of the exhibit stand and wanted to continue introducing, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he let out a big sneeze.
The table had not been cleaned for a long time, so a thick layer of dust had accumulated. Once the book was placed on it, the dust fluttered up into the NPC’s nostrils.
Gu Mian predicted he would make that awkward laugh again any moment now.
Sure enough, soon came the "haha" sound from the stage.
"As you can see from the banner, our instance is called the Fierce Ghost Exhibition, a very vivid and lively name. Your task is to each receive a bag of seeds from me, then head to your respective greenhouses for planting. Of course, the seeds you receive are not ordinary seeds but ones that will grow into ghosts;
"When the ghost seeds mature, they will leave the soil and engage in various light-hearted mini-games with the cultivator. If the cultivator wins in the mini-games, the ghost will willingly come to the exhibit stand, and I will score it..."
Fatty, looking at the introduction on the side of the Rock Paper Scissors Ghost, saw the line "If the cultivator loses, the Rock Paper Scissors Ghost will start attacking," and whispered: "You call that an easy mini-game?"
The NPC pretended not to hear and continued on stage: "Each person is given an individual score, with a full score of 500 points. Once a cultivator’s exhibition score reaches 500 points, the instance will end;
"Each seed produces a random type of ghost, but once the seed sprouts, you can basically tell the ghost type. Then, you can come to the hall to find the corresponding ghost model, check how to cultivate them, and even learn the conditions for their exhibit beforehand;
"The introduction board also lists their corresponding scores..."
At this point, the NPC paused for a moment, then continued: "Of course, the scores you get from the exhibition might not match the introduction board exactly. If the ghosts cultivated are exceptionally perfect and of high quality, as the scorer, I might give extra points."
Here, he showed a slightly happy expression, as if thinking of something good.
Fatty muttered from the side: "That’s almost as good as saying outright, isn’t it?"
It was implicit that if someone cultivated the first ghost to make it onto the exhibition stand, the scorer would give the cultivator 500 points right away, completing the instance task, and conveniently get Gu Mian kicked out of the instance.
The scorer announced the instance rewards: "The player who scores first in the exhibition can receive... hmm..."
He was reading from his notebook, probably because the instance had not started for so long that he forgot what the rewards were.
Seemingly unable to find the rewards section, he flipped through several pages quickly before finding the content he was looking for: "The player who scores first at the exhibition can receive a ’Perfect Score Transcript.’"
Perfect Score Transcript? Gu Mian focused on this key information.
That’s the necessary item to upgrade the Mother Summoner. Just a moment ago, he was wondering if there would be such a Perfect Score Transcript in this instance, and unexpectedly, there was.
"Wait?" At this point, the scorer showed a strange expression, muttering to himself: "Is this kind of thing in the rewards? Although we have a scoring mechanism, this is not an exam-like instance after all. I don’t think this was in the previous rewards..."
He hesitated for a moment, then continued to read: "First place can get a ’Perfect Score Transcript’ and a ’Flower Calendar’ along with two Mysterious Seeds and 500 Game Coins."
Since he hadn’t gotten them yet, Gu Mian didn’t know the use of the calendar and mysterious seeds.
But what he cared about most now was the "Perfect Score Transcript." Looks like it’s best not to use any special means to leave this instance.
"When the first place completes the instance task, the players ranked behind can each receive a mysterious seed and one hundred Game Coins." The record keeper flipped through a few pages back and forth to ensure nothing was overlooked.
After pausing on one page for a few seconds, he indeed found an overlooked content, and the record keeper let out that awkward laugh again before continuing.
"Just to remind everyone, ghost seeds might grow into ultra-rare ghost types, which are extremely dangerous but also scored very highly. These ultra-rare ghost types don’t have models and introductions in the hall, so cultivators need to figure out the conditions for them to go on stage themselves."
